In this week’s edition of “sure, we guess?” news, the moderately successful, mostly forgotten Shane Black noir comedy The Nice Guys is getting the TV reboot that no one was really asking for — but with a genderbent twist.

The Nice Guys is now The Nice Girls, a female-led TV reboot of the ’70s-set profane buddy-comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. While buddy-comedies are a dime a dozen on TV — we even got a Lethal Weapon TV version recently — the news is eyebrow-raising particularly because the movie came out only last year, only to meet mostly positive reviews but an apathetic box office. So it’s curious why this particular property would be chosen for a female-led reboot.

(Welcome to Movie Mixtape, where we find cinematic relatives and seek out interesting connections between new releases and older movies that allow us to rethink and enjoy what’s in our theaters as well as the favorites on our shelf. In this edition: Spider-Man: Homecoming.)

Be honest. What would you have done if you’d seen Sony and Marvel cast someone to play Uncle Ben in Spider-Man: Homecoming? Screamed? Shook your head? Vowed never to see it, only to buy opening night tickets? These are all correct answers.

For the third time in only 15 years, Spider-Man is being introduced to us on the big screen. For the first time, he’s come home to the warm, awaiting arms of the Marvel family so that he can have direct contact with Iron Man and Happy Hogan and some other surprise guests along the way.

Fortunately, Uncle Ben is not one of them. Wisely, the studios, the writers and co-writer/director Jon Watts are letting us shake hands with a new Peter Parker (Tom Holland) after his most formative moment, after he’s fought crime in a funny suit, and after he’s helped Iron Man slap Captain America in the face during Civil War.

Homecoming sees Parker juggling life as an unpopular high school sophomore and life as a superpowered hero who wants to do more than help old ladies cross the street. It’s a spectacular outing for Spidey that smartly avoids most of the tired tropes beaten into our eyeballs over the past decade. It’s light, sometimes dry, and it pairs well with these other films.

Let’s skip the usual blather about whether 2016 was a good year for movies or a bad year for movies and just get right to it, shall we? I saw a lot of films in 2016. Here were some of my very favorites.

The summer movie season is over and you know what that means – it’s time to hand out pointless imaginary awards to the best, worst, and weirdest films of the past four months!

Welcome to the 2016 Summer Blockbuster Awards, which is like the Oscars if the Oscars only covered a specific release window, were decided by one person, and were also really dumb. Here’s how this works: I have created 24 categories, from “Best Performance” to “Movie Most in Need of a Hug” and have awarded one winner and one runner-up. At the name of these awards imply, the focus here is on wide releases that arrived between May and August of this year. So while you really should go out of your way to see indie gems like Swiss Army Man and Don’t Think Twice, they won’t be the focus here. Got it? Good. Let’s just dive right in.

There’s no shortage of violence in movies today. Whether it’s superheroes fighting each other, spies being betrayed by their superiors, sentient foods being eaten by people or even frustrated fowl, almost every movie has a little bit of violence. But when it comes to the movies of writer/director Shane Black, there’s probably a little more than usual. However, as a new video essay points out, there’s something special about how the director of The Nice Guys and the writer of Lethal Weapon uses violence in his films.

Watch the video essay on violence in Shane Black movies after the jump. Read More »

As we pass the halfway mark of 2016, we at /Film figured it’d be a good time to take a step back and assess the year we’ve had so far. By this point last year, consensus had formed around a few favorites: Mad Max: Fury Road was far and away our favorite of the year one year ago, and it maintained that position all the way through to December. But this year? The results look much more varied. Join us as we count down /Film’s top 10 films of 2016 so far.

David, Devindra, and Jeff discuss what a Tetris movie’s plot would be, celebrate the world of competitive endurance tickling, praise the comedy of Maria Bamford, and aren’t super impressed by Neighbors 2.

In 2005, screenwriter Shane Black made his directorial debut with the wonderful Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but years before he directed his first feature, he co-wrote The Nice Guys with Anthony Bagarozzi. The finished film is quite different from the original draft, but the spirit of that script has remained intact throughout the years. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and Holland March (Ryan Gosling) are still the same flawed and immensely charming duo they first were.

By this point, Black is an old hand at writing buddy films. The writer behind Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Last Action Herohas written some of the most memorable on-screen duos of the past 25 years. We’ll see if Healy and March manage to stand the test of time like some of Black’s other characters, but it’s difficult to imagine audiences not sharing Black’s enthusiasm for these two down in the dumps heroes.

The Nice Guys director, who’s affection for Healy and March rings loud and clear in the film, was kind enough to discuss his latest film with us. Below, read our Shane Black interview.

If there’s one movie I hope is a hit this summer, it’s Shane Black‘s The Nice Guys. While the original buddy detective movie was pegged as a slight underdog going into the summer movie season, it has a lot going for it. Besides starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, there isn’t another movie like The Nice Guys coming out anytime soon. The film, which is currently hovering above a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, is a breath of fresh air from what we typically see this time of year. It’s not driven by set pieces, toy sales, or an attempt to appeal to China. The Nice Guys is a bit anomaly in this day and age, so when you see a film like this come along, you can’t help but to root for it.

Warner Bros. has been getting crafty with the marketing for The Nice Guys. The studio has released videos of Crowe and Gosling in therapy sessions together, but the latest piece of marketing turns the two actors into ’70s Hanna-Barbera style cartoon characters.

Shane Black‘s newest film, The Nice Guys, opens in theaters this weekend. Black’s third directorial effort is opening up against Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising and Angry Birds, a sequel and an animated feature based on a video game. The Nice Guys is one of the few original studio films coming out this summer, but that’s not the only reason to go out and support Black’s picture. It has everything you want from the writer and director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: two charismatic leading men, genuine heart, some unexpected turns, and plenty of jokes that pay off wonderfully. The Nice Guys is simply top-notch R-rated entertainment. Make sure to see it this weekend, and then, if you’re a fan of the film, maybe you’ll still even have time to purchase The Nice Guys Mondo poster.